Fuelling Ten Days Of Riding? That's Going To Take Some Serious Expertise!

Let's talk nutrition for a while!

David Fribbins, on a recent ride

It seems fairly obvious that 80 or so miles across varied terrains in a potentially hot climate is going to take it's toll on even the most competent rider. Ten back-to-back days of it is going to need some detailed attention.

So it's a mixture of relief and gratitude, that we've managed to recruit the talents of Sport and Exercise Nutritionist David Dixon to help us with our ride planning.

David has a number of years of experience planning and analysing the nutritional needs of a range of athletes. He began by explaining some basics to us.



When doing any endurance exercise it is important that the athlete starts fully fuelled and hydrated. 

Andy, Down on the Drops

Then for sessions lasting for more than two hours it is important to have a strategy where you remain topped up with food and fluid. The current guidelines suggest that for exercise over 2.5 hours you need to consume carbohydrates from a combined glucose and fructose source at a rate of 90g per hour; this being the amount needed regardless of body weight and 4-12g.kg/day of carbohydrates depending on how long your event lasts (4g for 3-5 hours and over 10g for over 6 hours of training a day). 


Although for some people this might cause some lower or upper gastrointestinal issues especially if you have not practiced this in training and having recently supported a person running a marathon everyday for 14 days, these amounts were hard to achieve without there being GI issues. Therefore the first thing you need to appreciate is that as much as you train your body and your mind, you must train your gut as well in order to avoid some of these issues.

However, there has been much debate about whether we should be eating carbohydrates or fats especially when we consider the difference between elite performance and non-elite athletes. As far as my take on this debate is; that this depends on how quickly you want to complete the distance. The quicker you want to go the more reliance you will have on carbohydrates i.e. in order to run a two hour marathon you need to burn 1200 Kcal an hour but the body can only convert 800Kcal an hour from fat, so you need a higher portion of the energy needed to come from carbohydrates. 


However, if you are happy to complete the distance in four hours or more then most of your energy source will come from fats. Therefore as a rule of thumb if you are completing your challenge at a heart rate in excess of 85% of heart rate max then you need to have a high carbohydrate fuelling strategy but if the challenge is being completed at or below 85% of heart rate max then you will predominately use your fat sources for energy and as such you do not need as much carbohydrates in your fuelling strategy.

Cycle Surgery: Supplying sports nutrition

David Dixon R.SENr

For the most accurate advice it is advisable to have a fitness test to find out your maximum fat burning intensity, from which a more accurate fuelling strategy can be worked out

The next stage of the process, David tells us, is a detailed individual analysis - which he's going to work closely with the group to identify our individual needs, which will help the cyclists and sponsor Cycle Surgery - as their range of Sports Nutrition will be on board the support vehicle on our way down to France!

If you are keen to discover more about sports nutrition, particularly if you are an endurance athlete yourself, David can be contacted for consultancy services by e-mail at david@nutrition4sport.org